GERMAN HATE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 237, 16 March 1915, Page 7

GERMAN HATE.

WIIV IT DEVELOPS.. ENVIOUS ANGER. (By Valentine Williams, in the London Daily Mail. The hatred against England with which Germany is ringing is one of the most interesting examples on record of .Massen suggestion. It should certainly commend itself to psychologists, Within the comparatively brief period that has elapsed since the outbreak of the war this furious rage agaai-t England has communicated itself to every section of the populace. It is not an artificial growth, but purely spontaneous. It is absolutely sincere. It is almbst wholly unanimous. The foamings of an elderly pantaloon like Professor Kuno are as characteristic of the Anglophobia of the German intellectuals as I-Terr Ernst Lissauer's unconsciously humorous Hymn of Hate is of the feeling in literary circles.

The seeds of this hatred —"unser Tlass Septan England," as the newspapers exultingly call it—was not planted by tlie German Government. Knowing that those seeds lay dormant, or. rather, to be accurate, had already grown to quite a respectable plant, it lias done, and is doing, everything in its 'power to tend and nurture this rabid enmity which lias now become the obsession of sixty-five million souls. The German Oovernment lias not been very successful hitherto in its congoniel labor of defamation and slander of the Allies. Let us be frank, therefore, and admit that its endeavors to fan the flame of hatred against the British in Germany have been crowned with complete success.

NOT A NEW GROWTH. It would be a radical mistake to suppose that this hatred of England in Germany is of recent growth. It does not. it is'truc, date back to the old Germany, though in the days of Ilismarck England was unpopular in Germany, as she was in most other Continental countries. It is, however, a feature of the German Volkspsychologic which has been developing during the past twenty years. A state, of peace naturally checks the frank utterances of a nation, and this state of miiul of the German people which the present war has fanned to a furious flame has during the past two decades been one of intense and consuming envy rather than of pure hatred. This envy of England is as much a symptom in the development of modern Germany as other marked features, such as the growth of licentiousness as demonstrated by the unhindered spread of "night life" and all it stands for. Hatred of England in Germany Is not a new thing. I first went to Germany as a school boy during the Boer war. The deepest impression I have retained of my contact with German lads of my own age, boys at the Grammar School in the little provincial town where I was learning German, was their gross ofTensiveness to me. The. young German soldiers and sailors fresh from the rather grey surroundings of German university or commercial school were electrified to find themselves sent forth as the "Kultur" hearers of Imperial Germany. But as their enthusiasm waxed at tlie prospects opened to them bv the new world which unrolled itself before them, their envy increased against the mighty Power whose well-ordered and contented colonies and settlements met them from sea to soa. from Hamburg to Hong Kong,

ENVY OF BRITISH PROSPERITY. The envy of Great Britain in Germany is the envy of the young German. It is the bitter feeling with which the poor clerk regards the rich son of his employer, or the small tradesman the capitalist. Ambitious young Germans of good family, coining to London in the rather straitened circumstances in which so many well-born German families live, have often displayed to me by their manner rather than their words, their irritation at the more affluent s;irn|ii;ulings of the young men with whom they come into contact in England. Envy of British prosperity is very marked in Press and public in Germany. The feeling may not always find concrete expression; it is there nevertheless. The young German's wratliful impotence to win for himself a position in the world commensurate with that of modern Germany has brought forth a whole crop of "Imperial-minded" German novels. Til these books, many of which have had enormous sales, you will find very clearly marked the devouring ambition, the bitter envy, and the painful self consciousness which are (lie leading traits of young Germany. These are indeed thi' qualities which have combined to make the German the most disliked nation of the world. T have only indicated the sources from which Germany's hatred of England springs. It goes without saying that the deteryiining factor of its present degree of ferociousness is due to the fact that Germany's game to master the world has been foiled anil that. England is the name of the spoil sport.